On April 10, 2024, Esspots.com published an article [archived here] positing that Paramount+, a streaming network, had offered comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards – who starred together on the hit show "Seinfeld" – $500 million for a new show.
The story was a piece of fiction.
It began:
Breaking: Paramount Offers Jerry Seinfeld And 'Blacklisted' Michael Richards $500 Million For A New Sitcom
In a surprising turn of events, Paramount Studios has extended a monumental $500 million offer to comedy legends Jerry Seinfeld and 'blacklisted' Michael Richards to collaborate on a new sitcom. This unprecedented investment signifies Paramount's confidence in the comedic duo's ability to revive laughter and entertainment in the ever-evolving landscape of television.
Other outlets picked up the story, including the Dunning-Kruger Times and SpaceXMania.
This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. Esspots.com describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows:
Welcome to Esspots.com, a website that specializes in satire, parody, and humor. Before you proceed to read our content, we would like to emphasize that nothing on this website is real. All of the articles, stories, and commentary found on Esspots.com are entirely fictitious and created for the purpose of entertainment only.
Richards, who played Kramer on the '90s sitcom "Seinfeld," was recorded saying the N-word and going on a racist rant while performing at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles in 2006. He has since been largely blacklisted.
We've previously reported on other satirical claims made by Esspots.com, including that Kid Rock and Jason Aldean's tour had surpassed Taylor Swift in concert attendance records and that ABC fired Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.